Hey everyone,
I wanted all of you to be some of the first to know that I've made an important decision about my future, and how that decision will affect the future of Diablo.

I recently celebrated my seven-year anniversary working on Diablo III, and while it’s been one of the most challenging and rewarding periods of my life, I've reached a point creatively where I'm looking forward to working on something new. The powers that be at Blizzard have been gracious enough to give me that opportunity. Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be moving off of the Diablo III project and transitioning elsewhere within Blizzard. This decision was not an easy one for me, and not one I made quickly, but ultimately it’s what I feel is right.

The first thing I want to assure you all is that this will not negatively impact our ongoing support of Diablo III. The game was not made by one person, far from it, and the team that poured their passion and considerable talent into it isn’t going anywhere. We have lots of things planned for the future, and those plans will carry forward as normal. I also won't be abandoning the team, and will remain available to them during the transition period while we determine who will take over duties as game director.

To that point, you shouldn't be surprised if you see a job posting for a game director on Diablo III, as we want to make sure we explore every opportunity to find the best possible leadership for the project. We’re looking forward to finding this person and hearing what kind of fresh ideas they can bring to the table.

I'm proud of Diablo III, and despite our differences at times I will miss the community that has formed around it. I feel I have made many mistakes in managing that relationship, but my intent was always to provide a great gaming experience, and be as open and receptive as possible, while still sticking true to the vision the Diablo team has for the game.

I know some of you feel we fell short of our promise to release the game “when it’s ready.” While we're not perfect, we try to make the best decisions we can with the information and knowledge we have at the time. That doesn't mean we always make the right decisions, but if we made a mistake then I feel we've made an exceptional effort to correct it.

This is what you can always count on from Blizzard: that we will stand by our games and make every effort to continually improve them over time. We heard the feedback and suggestions from the community. For example, we agreed that Diablo III's itemization at launch was not good enough, so the team made numerous changes, including changing drop rates, re-tuning legendaries, and adding scores of new items to the game. We also agreed that the end game needed more depth, so the team added new events, and new systems like Monster Power and Paragon levels.

Our commitment to making our games as good as they can be is what has always defined Blizzard as a game studio, and that commitment never ends for us at a ship date. With your help, we'll continue to play, debate, and improve Diablo III, as we've done with every Blizzard game.

To that end, patch 1.0.7 is underway, the PTR is live, and there are many other great things brewing for Diablo in 2013. I’m leaving Diablo III in good hands, and my departure will not jeopardize the progress of the game as we continue to do what we do: listen, play, and improve.

You are the most passionate, dedicated group of gamers a designer could hope to have. I wish you all the best, and want to thank you for making this an amazing experience for me. Keep your axes sharp, your spell books handy, and that crafty devil in check.
--Jay

Mabye now we can get some randomness in the game instead of the same maps for every area over and over where only the dungeons have different places, thats the biggest reason i stopped playing, i could dream the maps and it got so boring...

I don't doubt Jay did the best job he could. He had the challenge of making a genre of game that hadn't been done really well since the last Diablo. Since then games have changed drastically. Anyone who thinks Jay could've release a game just like D2 and all would've been well is kidding themselves. Jay had a huge challenge and I think he did well. Of course much changes needed to be made, but much of the changes have already been made and many are still to come.

I wish he could be around to direct the game to its final product, but his fingerprints will be on this game forever and I think, for the most part, he did a great job. There are always haters of games, and I'm glad Bilzzard heeds their advice to some extent, but some people are so rude because they've never had or will never have a job this big. Cheers Jay, you did a great job. It's clear you you put blood, sweat, and tears in to this. I played a lot of hours and am not even close to done yet.

I think this had less to do with fans bitching and more to do with the MASSIVE amount of time they spent on PVP that they have scrapped and taken back to the drawing board now. I'll mess around with it whenever it shows up, but I'm not fixated on it. Still, I was concerned when the blog went up that basically said, "We've got nothing to show for the last 9 months. Here is dueling so that you can beat each other up if you want." Granted, other systems have been introduced since release, but all teams were not required at all times to put those together.

Or, as someone on page 1 said, Jay made more money from this game than any other PC game in 2012. Time to put those talents to good use in other IPs. I do think he is used as a scapegoat, it makes me sad. D3 hasn't been an endless source of entertainment for me, but I got more play time out of it than most games I've bought in the last few years, and I'll get yet more I'm sure. I never expected WoW with demons. After all, they can't support the game in the same way they do WoW on box sales alone.

IMO the team pussied out of a lot of things during the development. Obviously, not all of those decisions were Jay's, but still, he was the game director, and I'm not sad at all that he is moving on.
D3 is most certainly not a bad game. But it's not nearly as awesome as it could have been. Hopefully someone with a little more balls will take over. All the best to Jay.

the only real mistake with d3 was not having regular content updates and pvp ready at release. the game is good and certainly worth the money. most people buy a game and play it for 20-50 hours at most. i'm betting every single person in this thread broke 100 hours on d3. i'm sure some went past 200 or even 300.

people wanted a game they would play as much and for as long as WoW while not paying a subscription. they may not admit it, but that's the cause behind a lot of the whine/complaint posts.